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27. The Ballad of Bob Bedbug

Writer's picture: cherylmurfincherylmurfin

Updated: Jan 24, 2019

Some people don't do gluten or dairy or religion. At the beginning of the walk, I didn't do bugs -- of any kind.


So when my guidebooks to the Camino all gave tips on preventing bed bugs, I got a little woozy. Accommodate 300,000 people a year on any path, they all said, and there WILL be bed bugs. Needless to say my obsession with them started before we even hit the trail. And really, obsession is the right word. I worried about bed bugs incessantly.


Then something happened. Joe petted a sweet old dog. The dog had fleas. The fleas left little bites that looked like bed bugs all over both of us. We washed everything with us. We used ointment given to us by a hostel owner. Eventually the itching stopped. These bug bites weren't the end of the world. They were, however, the end of my obsession with bed bugs. I moved on to fleas.


The Ballad of Bob Bedbug


There once was a tiny bed bug named Bob,

Who was greatly despised because of his job,

Which was simply to crawl and bite where he could,

To fatten himself on a little good blood.


Each night he would creep up next to a mouth,

For a CO2 puff when the sleeper breathed out.

High on that gas he’d feel awfully peckish,

Then spit on the spot and suck in his breakfast.


He’d slurp for five minutes ’til he was big, round and red,

So full of hemoglobin it caused stars in his head.

Such a long drink was way too much food,

So right after feasting Bob had to poop.


Next morning while hiding under a big box-spring nail,

Poor Bob heard a man shriek from the bed he’d last scaled.

“Oh my God, what is that? Is that blood on my sheet?”

“And what are these bites on my face, hands and feet?”


Then out came the flashlights, credit cards, combs.

And next thing those sleepers would race to their phones.

“Come quick! We have bed bugs; by God they are bad!”

Poor Bob scratched his head and asked: “What’s wrong with that?”


“I am a bedbug and I’m pretty nice.

“I’m active for mere minutes, unlike fleas or head lice!

“I mean we all gotta live, we gotta eat, right?

“So what’s the big problem with my snacking at night?”


But Bob’s best defenses fell on deaf ears.

They were too busy boiling those new sheets from Sears.

And vacuuming headboards and mattresses and corners.

Bob’s whole bedroom domain lay in ruin in hours.


“Wait! You can’t do this, I have a right!”

He squeaked at the vacuum with all of his might.

He dashed and dodged to beat the strong suction,

Then ran behind the floor trim to take stock of the situation.


And while he was noodling on how to rebuild,

A great ugly fog machine suddenly appeared.

Those sleepers — the weaklings — had called the Bug Squad.

Bob’s minutes were numbered, the poor arthropod.


“Please!” he pleaded. “I’ll go for the cat!

“She’ll never notice when I need a snack!

“Or the dog, she’s a pal, she’d never complain!

“Please! Let’s try and work this out among friends!”


But the sleepers weren’t listening, no indeed they were not.

Instead, they were itching and itching a lot.

Bob’s night bites were festering, they hurt and they oozed.

And the sleepers declared: “NO BUGS AS WE SNOOZE!”


So the Bug Squad, they pointed that fog from their hose

Right at the hiding spot Bob Bedbug chose.

They let the gas rip and the spray it did fly,

With that Bob saluted, then laid down and died.


At his funeral his six-legged nits let loose their wails.

They missed poor Bob Bedbug and his rust red coattails.

But they all knew something the sleepers did not.

So they plotted and waited to get back at the lot.


On a cold rainy night just 14 days later,

They morphed into adult bedbugs and that bed they did scale;

A legion of bedbugs, Bob’s great progeny,

Now feasted with abandon, they feasted with glee!


“This is for Papa!” they said as the dined.

“And for future generations of bedbugs at night!”

“You don’t own this planet! You’re not in charge!”

“Just when you think you’ve beat us, we’ll even the score!”


The sleepers, eventually, tossed out their bed,

And their sheets and their blankets and pillows as well.

But the war went on, bugs clinging to drapes,

And hiding in dressers, in closets and crates.


After years, the sleepers raised a white flag:

“You can have our cat Mitzi who never complains.”

So instead of the fleas, a right normal cat thorn,

They flea-dipped Mitzi, that brave spoil of war.


They all signed the contract, they all took the pledge:

It’s the cat only for dinner no biting sleepers in bed.

But, the cat tasted awful, her blood tasted like soil,

So the bedbugs packed bags and headed up north.


The moral is simple, it’s simple I say.

Bedbugs won’t kill you, but if they won’t go away,

Make truce with the bedbugs, sign ‘em in blood,

And pick a sacrifice that tastes just like mud!


~ Cheryl Murfin, on the Camino de Santiago

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